One Hot Day
by Paraluman
Summary: What happens when you put some of Soul Society's most powerful men and women in a room to endure a troublesome meeting on a steaming day? You're causing trouble, of course.
1. Prologue

Written by Ichizawa Tomine

Owned by Tite Kubo

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**One Hot Day**

Chapter 1

It was one unusually hot day in Soul Society. The sun was high and there were no clouds to afford anyone the comfort of some shade. The air was very humid, and there was no breeze blowing. The streets of Rukongai also looked pretty deserted – most people had flocked to the beach, rivers and springs (cold, mind you) to cool off.

However, not all people could be as fortunate as the people of Rukongai. Inside the gates of Seireitei, to the First Bantai's headquarters, inside a room with very small windows, were Soul Society's most powerful men and women, looking very grim and feeling highly irritable. They were assembled for the annual interdivision meeting, one of the longest and troublesome meetings ever to take place. Here captains and vice-captains voice out their concerns (comments, insults, etc.) to other divisions' captains and vice-captains.

As of the moment, Mayuri Kurotsuchi and Zaraki Kenpachi were the ones who were talking… er, bashing each other. The sotaichou was hearing their case.

"Yamamoto-taichou, this man's subordinates tore down one of my headquarters' walls!!" Mayuri shrieked and pointed to Zaraki.

"I told you, it was all an accident!!" Zaraki spat back.

"It was no accident, you oaf!! I know you secretly want to turn my space into one of your damned barracks!!"

"As if my men want to go anywhere within a mile of your place, asshole!! I told you they were just passing by on their way to the fields!!"

"That's no reason!! Why are they going to the fields? To plant corn?" Mayuri snickered. Apparently, with the many apparatus he installed to his body he could no longer feel the heat's intensity as much as the normal shinigami do.

Yamamoto massaged his temples in frustration. With the steadily rising temperature of the room, Mayuri's shouting interlaced with Zaraki's cursing did nothing but worsen the situation. The rest of the shinigami in the room ignored the two, shifting every now and then to a position that seemed less hot. Even Shunsui took off his pink haori and Unohana kept her long hair in a neat bun at the back of her head. Byakuya tied his hair into a ponytail (Isane was snapping pictures for the SWA), and Nanao was actually using her fan instead of slamming it into her taichou's forehead. Jyuushiro's hair was also tied up (Isane took a picture of him too, for Kiyone), and Komamura was licking himself every chance he's got (when the other captain's gazes seemed to be in other directions) to keep cool.

By now a string of curses and insults had already been exchanged and the two displayed their colorful vocabularies to the whole Gotei 13. Normally, the sotaichou wouldn't stand this but when Zaraki nonchalantly said to Mayuri that Mayuri sounded like a bitch, the surrounding captains shifted their attention to their sotaichou and expected (and prayed) that he would blow the place up and end the meeting right then and there. But when the sotaichou didn't budge from his seat, Mayuri got into the act and lost no time in calling Zaraki "Tinker boy (in reference to the bells in his hair)" right away.

Thirty minutes later, the scene was as we left it, though the captains had visibly lesser clothing. All of them had taken off their captain's jackets and in Shunsui's case, stripped off his black kimono too. Matsumoto could be heard pleading to her taichou to make the temperature in the room drop some degrees. Hitsugaya, pissed at Matsumoto for giving him 175 reports to finish up the last time, decidedly said no and the two started to make some noise themselves – Matsumoto trying to coax her captain to do what she asked and Hitsugaya promptly shrug her off, which made Matsumoto beg even more.

Isane was already mugging Byakuya with the camera, quite shamelessly in fact, and this led the usually reserved guy to blow off his top. The sweltering heat and the flashes on his face certainly did not make a good combination. He gave Isane a good scolding – plenty of words for a man like him (in other words, just a few) – but it was enough to scare the wits off Isane. She went to take a seat beside her captain, but apparently Byakuya was still hot on the trail, and continued to rail her from the other side of the table. Unohana, herself in a bad mood brought about by the heat, decided to steam off by bickering with Byakuya. They were son arguing (yes, Unohana flung some witty words at him), and this kinda silenced the room for a while. They looked at Byakuya and Unohana, who were now standing face to face, talking with raised voices at each others' faces.

But what was the point of keeping quiet? The ruckus went on and pretty soon enough everyone started to follow suit, Renji in a heated conversation with Hisagi, Jyuushirou trying to evade Shunsui's invitations to take him out to the red lights' district that night, Nanao yelling at Shunsui, Shunsui apologizing to Nanao and asking her for a date, Nanao slamming her fan on to his head, making Shunsui step on Komamura's tail, Komamura howling in pain, Yachiru giggling madly, Soi Fong screaming at her vice captain and well, it was very, very noisy.

Still the sotaichou remained quiet. Chojiro looked at his taichou nervously. This silence cannot mean anything good. Chojiro backed up a bit, anticipating that his taichou would burn the whole place any minute now. After a few moments and still nothing happened, Chojiro neared his captain and found out that he was… sleeping.

"Taichou," Chojiro whispered while shaking his captain's shoulder, "wake up. The meeting is a mess!!"

Yamamoto did not stir for a while. But soon enough he opened his eyes, the whole scene slowly registering into his head. His meeting room was now an ensuing verbal battlefield and nearly fell of his seat on seeing his two most levelheaded captains on each other's nerves, saying some things which I will not type here.

Yamamoto rapped his cane on the floor and called the attention of his captains in a booming voice, "ALL OF YOU, STOP THIS FOOLISHNESS RIGHT NOW!!"

All of the captains involved in the noise-making stopped in the middle of what they were doing. Mayuri was holding a chair midair about to slam it on Zaraki's head, Hitsugaya was suffocating in Matsumoto's bountiful assets, Renji and Hisagi holding each others' collars, Hinamori and Nemu were standing on the table arguing about something I failed to mention, and Byakuya and Unohana, still in each other's faces.

"RETURN TO YOUR SEATS AT ONCE!!"

The ruckus filled room suddenly became very eerie, and the shinigami in question quickly grabbed the chair nearest to him (Mayuri had an advantage, so to say).

"Now can anyone tell me who was behind all of this?" Yamamoto said with a calmer voice.

Everyone immediately pointed to their opponent. The old man became even more enraged.

"AND NOW NO ONE TAKES RESPONSIBILITY?! YOU ALL ARE SOUL SOCIETY'S MOST RESPECTED MEN AND WOMEN!! AND YET ALL OF YOU ACT LIKE BUFFOONS!!" Yamamoto declared, his voice trembling once again.

Everyone in the room did not look up to the fuming sotaichou. Whoever got the old man's ire was surely a poor soul… each individual in the room hoped that it wouldn't be them.

"But… isn't it your fault since you slept instead of stopping Clown-face from making Ken-chan mad?" Yachiru pointed out. Zaraki cursed that he shouldn't have picked Yachiru off the streets. Even he did not want to face the old man.

Shunsui swallowed his courage and commented to Yamamoto almost reluctantly, "Is that so, Yama-jii?"

All heads turned to the General Commander of the whole Gotei 13. They had been so engrossed with their verbal jousts that they forgot that Yamamoto was sitting in an area which gave him good visibility to their rambles.

Yamamoto cleared his throat and looked at Shunsui with piercing daggers on the background. Shunsui had an urge to cut his tongue right then and there. "That's it! This meeting is consummated. Everyone out!!"

Many heads hit the table, filled with sweat drops. Matsumoto and Renji wanted to laugh but granted the mood of most of the populace was in it wasn't very advisable. They got out of the room as soon as they could, filing out in two lines. But the battles weren't over yet. They eyed their antagonists with venomous intensity that anyone who had the bad luck of straying within 50 meters of their radius was bound to get suffocated. Meanwhile, Shunsui thanked the gods profusely that day, visiting every temple he could and pouring his precious sake on the ground. With the show of gratitude and thanksgiving he gave to different deities that day I think he could have been declared the holiest man in Soul Society. Yama-jii didn't grill him. At least, not yet.

**The next day…**

_4__th__ bantai HQ_

Isane shuddered as she watched her taichou rubbing her hands. It wasn't a good sign… it meant that the demure beauty was in a foul mood.

"Kuchiki Byakuya will regret every word that came out of his mouth," Unohana said in a gentle manner though every word dripped with poison. "Isane, do you think you can get me 6th bantai's medical records by this afternoon?"

Isane suddenly felt sorry for the noble. He was a dead man. But she was a dead woman too if she defied her taichou's orders. "Hai, Unohana-taichou."

_11__th__ bantai HQ_

"That Circus-freak will die," Zaraki said out of the blue, while Yumichika tattled on the reports that came that morning. "I'll make him pay. Heads with no grey matter huh? I'll show him the red matter."

"Taichou?" Yumichika waved his hand in front of his captain's eyes. He had finished reading the reports and was asking permission to leave when he noticed that his taichou was not paying attention to him.

"Waddya want?!"

"I'm done with the reports so can I get my beauty sleep now?"

"Die, Ayasegawa."

"So can I? You know taichou, you'll get more wrinkles if you keep frowning like that."

"Whatever, now get out of my sight!!"

"My, my, the taichou sure is in a bad mood today." And with that Yumichika skipped away from his captain, wondering to himself what had happened the previous day since the captain was also sour when he and Yachiru got back from the meeting.

**- End of Chapter 1 -

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	2. This Means War

Written by: Tomine Ichizawa

Disclaimer: All hail Tite Kubo.

A/N: Thanks so much to all who reviewed, and those who read the first chapter!! XD And I'm really sorry for the very late update… My part time job kinda drains me and I just arrived from out of town today. Well, I hope this is fine : )

Legend:

"One Hot Day" – talking

One Hot Day – description, action

_ 'One Hot Day'_ – thought

_ 'One Hot Day'_ – flashback

**One Hot Day**

**Chapter 2**

"**This Means War"**

It was a very pleasant morning in Seireitei the day after the dreaded meeting day. There was a breeze blowing and though it was quite warm, it was still one of the finest mornings Soul society has ever seen. It was as if the gods (of the death gods) were compensating for yesterday's intense heat. Unfortunately though, no explaining or coaxing could calm the anger and annoyance of almost all the people who participated in the meeting. There was only one thing in their mind now: _revenge_. And they were going to get any way they can.

Unohana meticulously went through every word of the tome she had in her hands, looking for a snitch. A snitch that could make Kuchiki Byakuya a very sorry man. She had been working for almost three hours now; Isane did her job very well and instead of dropping in the records by afternoon, she had it on the office table in ten minutes. Unohana hoped that she would find out small blotch in that man, thinking of the nice walk she was missing just to exact some kind of admonition on Byakuya.

'_This is foolish,' _Unohana thought as she flipped though Byakuya's record on his 375th check-up. _'I'm wasting my time. Maybe I should just let it pass…the argument was probably just brought about by the heat, to be sure. Hmm… maybe I can take a walk to the 6__th__ bantai and apologize."_

But as memories of the noble's tirade yesterday visualized into her head, Unohana was starting to doubt her peacemaking plan.

_'__And besides, whoever thought of wearing their braid in front? Isn't the purpose of looping it together and placing it in the back to get it out of the way? Tch, what's more, it looks absurd.'_

Unohana suddenly felt the urge to rub her hands again. '_My hair is absurd? Maybe he needs to look in the mirror. No straight man will ever wear hair clips as flashy as his.'_

_'Oh, and I know for a fact that whatever gentleness you display is a forced quality. If it were not, how come the brainless, fight-loving goons from the eleventh cower from you?'_

'_Forced? How dare he.'_

_'And what about your strange zanpakuto? For all its size it's absolutely useless in battle.'_

'_Minazuki may not be apt for battle, but it has saved million of lives. I'd like to see his cherry blossoms do the same for the wounded. He has gone too far.' _Apparently this time, whatever was left of Unohana's resolve to make peace with Byakuya was utterly destroyed. She started to flip through the tome she had earlier closed with much more gusto, subjecting several more records to her scrutiny.

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Kuchiki Byakuya was signing each paper on his desk carelessly. Carelessly in the way that his characters were quite irregular and some were visibly darker than the rest. He didn't notice them, though; he was thinking of Unohana's words to him the day before.

_'Wherever are your prided impeccable manners, Byakuya? No well-mannered man verbally tousles a lady, especially one who is of no relation to him!_'

"… impeccable manners… the camera was stuck to my face," Byakuya said out of nowhere, dipping his pen into the inkwell.

Renji, who was working beside him, looked up from his own paperwork and looked at his taichou quizzically. "You said something, taichou?"

Byakuya merely looked at him when another of Unohana's speeches played in his head.

_'And don't you know the image you paint of your division? I suggest you practice some sort of respect to your fukutaichou, not bossing him all the way so that it wouldn't look like the poor boy(Renji) is subject to your every beck and call, to your every whim and fantasy!.'_

"No, Abarai, get back to your work."

Renji just shrugged and did as Byakuya said, unconscious of the thoughts which were now running in his taichou's mind.

'_I'm supposed to be gay?! I'm a widower, if I have to spell that out for her. I hire geisha to soothe my nerves. I keep a picture of Hisana in my room. I've seen Yorouichi naked once in my life, and it's disturbed me for many nights. And now I'm supposed to be in love with Abarai??'_ Byakuya looked at Renji from the corner of his eyes and shivered inwardly. He proceeded to grab another stack of papers, signing them with a furor to get bad pictures out of his mind. In his agitation, he failed to notice that the papers had already been consumed, and that he was already signing his name on his otherwise spotless desk.

Meanwhile, Renji stared wide-eyed as his taichou began scribbling on his desk. He looked at Byakuya but Byakuya was staring off into space with a somewhat annoyed expression on his features, still signing away on the poor table.

"Uh… taichou?"

Byakuya was now starting a hole on the desk. Renji stood up and tried to wave his hand over his taichou's eyes, but it induced no reaction from the latter. Byakuya was still staring into the air and Renji backed up to the wall and watched his captain.

'_Is he possessed?' _Renji thought fearfully.

Byakuya's pen was now being gripped excessively – proven by the fact that it was already beginning to snap. Renji hurried out of the office, just in time for the whole pen to split into half. A passing shinigami looked at Renji.

"Run, now, run for your life! Kuchiki-taichou is possesed!!" Renji told the shinigami who just stared at him as if the redhear were crazy. Renji ran out of the vicinity and the shinigami looked in the office. He jumped in surprise as he saw the taichou looking down at him with a creepy expression.

"K-K-Ku-Kuchi-Kuchiki-t-taichou," the shinigami greeted, falling on his buns. _'The fukutaichou was right!'_

"Where is Abarai?"

"A-Ano… A-Abarai-fukutaichou r-ran th-there a while a-g-go." The shinigami pointed to a doorway standing ajar. The rest of the place was devoid of people.

"…" Byakuya followed the direction pointed to him earlier by the shinigami. He was going in for the kill. Unohana will learn why no one messed with the Kuchiki.

* * *

Hitsugaya and Matsumoto sat in silence in their office. Hitsugaya, finally fed up with all her whining about the heat, froze the whole room Matsumoto excluding. Now she was pulling on her robes to cover most of her body to fend from the cold. She couldn't escape; her taichou had sealed off the door under inches of ice. She could only get out if she finished 10 stacks of reports. She slumped on her desk, toppling about 7 of those 10 stacks.

"Taichou, what did I do to deserve this?" Matsumoto groaned as she got down on the floor to stack up the papers together again.

Hitsugaya hid his smirk as he replied, "You asked for this didn't you?"

Matsumoto pouted.

"Uh-uh Matsumoto, that's not going to work on me."

Matsumoto whined. They had been repeating this conversation for some 5 times already and each try, Matsumoto failed to convince Hitsugaya to let her out. She had no plans of staying in the ice box any longer.

Matsumoto was coming up with a new trick when some ungodly sound was heard from miles away, like a huge bomb was dropped into a metropolis. Hitsugaya and Matsumoto looked at each other.

"What was that?" Matsumoto asked.

Before Hitsugaya could do anything, a horde of shinigami banged on the frozen office door.

"Taichou! Taichou! Open up!!"

Hitsugaya quickly undid all the ice made the door stuck and in came the shinigami.

"Zaraki-taichou and Kurotsuchi-taichou are fighting and they're getting near our headquarters!!"

"What?!"

**End of Chapter**


	3. A Note from the Author

A Note from the Author:

A Note from the Author:

Thank you very much to all those who reviewed this fic!! As to updating it, I will try my very best to utilize whatever little time my sembreak has given me before I go back to hit my books.

And another thing. It's been well over a year since I wrote this, so I really don't know what do with it right now.. I need ideas, ideas. If you have some, please be a dear and care to share!! Thankies!!


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